Yes, I prefer a lot of motion and Avery Bradley throwing the ball away. I suppose we don't need Rondo.

The guys went soft in the second half. Playoffs are not for babies. But I still have hope that they will tough it out in the next game.

What a stupid post.

Bradley threw the ball away trying to iso Pierce and Garnett.

Kirk, stupidity is believing in continuously changing formulaic thinking. The Celts started a big lineup. So you find something else to moan about.

If AB can't make passes to feed iso situations, do you really expect him to make passes in motion? Bottom line, the guys went soft. Got scared of the moment and NY fed on crowd energy and turned up the heat. Doc tried to hold it together by trying some things but he doesn't play on the court. The players didn't execute.

Finally, stupidity is believing that Doc has superior options at his disposal and is deliberately not playing them to lose game.

You need a great bench to win these days and some interior blocking, rebounding and height. The Celtics do not have that and even if they did Doc wouldn't go in that direction. Plus his bench scored only four points. Great strategy by Doc.... ha ha ha. Wear your starters out Doc!!

In response to prakash's comment:

In response to Kirk6's comment:

I have never seen anything like this in my life.

A basketball offense with no movement and no screens.

It is unique to say the least....and terrible.

The should change their name to the Boston ISOes.

Yes, I prefer a lot of motion and Avery Bradley throwing the ball away. I suppose we don't need Rondo.

The guys went soft in the second half. Playoffs are not for babies. But I still have hope that they will tough it out in the next game.

What a stupid post.

Bradley threw the ball away trying to iso Pierce and Garnett.

Kirk, stupidity is believing in continuously changing formulaic thinking. The Celts started a big lineup. So you find something else to moan about.

If AB can't make passes to feed iso situations, do you really expect him to make passes in motion? Bottom line, the guys went soft. Got scared of the moment and NY fed on crowd energy and turned up the heat. Doc tried to hold it together by trying some things but he doesn't play on the court. The players didn't execute.

Finally, stupidity is believing that Doc has superior options at his disposal and is deliberately not playing them to lose game.

Here's the thing. In the first half the ball was moving and it was allowing for Green to get to trim very easily. When they stopped moving the ball in the second half it made Greens job more difficult and he cooled off. That's the one thing about Doc that annoys me to no end for the good coach he is. When ever something seems effective he goes away from it and then they crumble like today. It get's frustrating to watch. Way too many Iso's and one on one ball in the second half. Bad formula that leads to losing basketball.

Pretty stupid of Doc. Right? It had nothing to do with the fact that players need breathers. Nobody can sustain 48 mins of high intensity basketball. Also, it had nothing to do with the Knicks adjusting the game plan to play the passing lanes more and forcing tougher reads on players. It has nothing to do with the Knicks suddenly becoming more physical forcing the Celts to deal with one more element.

No! It was doc. He moves away from what is working, he does not play his better players and keeps them on the bench. Wow! You guys are precious.

As I have said, the Celts went soft. And everything broke down. Doc tried some things but the players have to stand up and win the fight.

"What I saw and what I hope they see is that Paul is really good, so is Jeff, but you can’t just lean on them to say, ‘Win it,’ and it turned into that in the second half," Rivers said. "They just kept throwing it to them and standing and said, ‘Go do something.’ That’s just hard to win that way.”

The Celtics got alot of rest leading up to the playoffs. The Knicks lost Chandler, played Novak for 5 minutes and played James White less than a minute.

There is no reason a guy like Wilcox shouldn't be out there sprinting up and down the court. There is no reason a guy like TWill shouldn't be out there keeping the tempo up. When the Celtics pushed the pace in the first half, they got alot easy buckets in transition and looks at the rim.

Then we went to the slow down "iso" in the 2nd half. If Doc doesn't trust a veteran like Wilcox and a guy like Williams who has played well to push the pace for the Celtics, then we are DONE in this round.

He'd much rather keep a slow-moving KG on the court and play him a totally uncustomary 37 minutes in which he was obviously gassed. And Green played all but 2 minutes. Where did this rotation strategy come from?

The Celtics got alot of rest leading up to the playoffs. The Knicks lost Chandler, played Novak for 5 minutes and played James White less than a minute.

There is no reason a guy like Wilcox shouldn't be out there sprinting up and down the court. There is no reason a guy like TWill shouldn't be out there keeping the tempo up. When the Celtics pushed the pace in the first half, they got alot easy buckets in transition and looks at the rim.

Then we went to the slow down "iso" in the 2nd half. If Doc doesn't trust a veteran like Wilcox and a guy like Williams who has played well to push the pace for the Celtics, then we are DONE in this round.

He'd much rather keep a slow-moving KG on the court and play him a totally uncustomary 37 minutes in which he was obviously gassed. And Green played all but 2 minutes. Where did this rotation strategy come from?

Did the Celtics really go to slow down iso? From Doc's comments, it does not look like that is what he prescribed. Also, we have seen a lot of Wilcox and Williams in the regular season. Do you really believe that they are ready to perform?

The guys that were supposed to perform, did not. KG and Terry are prime culprits. The bench was playing tentative. Green became soft in the second half. I am frustrated by that too. But I am not buying the recipies being circulated by you and Kirk.

For the Celts to do some damage in this series, the players will have to stand up and fight.

Prakash, the Celtics stopped pushing the pace in the second half because their minutes were mounting. You just cannot expect the key players to keep up the pace they played with in the first half for the entire game without getting sufficient rest.

And substituting with only 3 guards will not give everyone a breather. In the 4th quarter, the Celtics had no energy, had no legs for perimeter jump shots, were tentative when the Knicks applied the least bit of pressure.

There's a reason for that - they were tired. Wilcox is a veteran who's very athletic and an uptempo pace is suited for TWill style of play. There is no doubt in my mind that keeping the pace up with backups against Kidd and Martin would have kept Green and PP and KG rested enough to play better in the 4th.

The Celtics got alot of rest leading up to the playoffs. The Knicks lost Chandler, played Novak for 5 minutes and played James White less than a minute.

There is no reason a guy like Wilcox shouldn't be out there sprinting up and down the court. There is no reason a guy like TWill shouldn't be out there keeping the tempo up. When the Celtics pushed the pace in the first half, they got alot easy buckets in transition and looks at the rim.

Then we went to the slow down "iso" in the 2nd half. If Doc doesn't trust a veteran like Wilcox and a guy like Williams who has played well to push the pace for the Celtics, then we are DONE in this round.

He'd much rather keep a slow-moving KG on the court and play him a totally uncustomary 37 minutes in which he was obviously gassed. And Green played all but 2 minutes. Where did this rotation strategy come from?

Did the Celtics really go to slow down iso? From Doc's comments, it does not look like that is what he prescribed. Also, we have seen a lot of Wilcox and Williams in the regular season. Do you really believe that they are ready to perform?

The guys that were supposed to perform, did not. KG and Terry are prime culprits. The bench was playing tentative. Green became soft in the second half. I am frustrated by that too. But I am not buying the recipies being circulated by you and Kirk.

For the Celts to do some damage in this series, the players will have to stand up and fight.

Prakash, the Celtics stopped pushing the pace in the second half because their minutes were mounting. You just cannot expect the key players to keep up the pace they played with in the first half for the entire game without getting sufficient rest.

And substituting with only 3 guards will not give everyone a breather. In the 4th quarter, the Celtics had no energy, had no legs for perimeter jump shots, were tentative when the Knicks applied the least bit of pressure.

There's a reason for that - they were tired. Wilcox is a veteran who's very athletic and an uptempo pace is suited for TWill style of play. There is no doubt in my mind that keeping the pace up with backups against Kidd and Martin would have kept Green and PP and KG rested enough to play better in the 4th.

Perhaps. I will give you credit for the gassed argument. But what I saw was that the Celts missed a number of open shots and the Kincks didn't. That changed the momentum completely. These shots did not look like tired shots. They looked like scared shots to me. Once the momentum shifted, on the road and against a talented team, there was no recovery.

My issue with Wilcox is that he is a complete defensive liability and TWill has not shown a shooting stroke. It is confounding what Jordan Crawford was doing on the floor. Lee spent a lot of energy but did not play a smart game. Green got a defender attached to his right hand and became tentative.

I just think that before we start blaming Doc, we need to ask if the players showed that they are ready to fight, or did they not?

Prakash, these guys performed throughout the season just like everyone else. Some of it good and some bad. Lee, Terry and Crawford did not separate themselves by their play from Wilcox and TWill given their playing time. But the one thing you cannot take away is that Wilcox brought energy all the time. Same for TWill. We substituted not one big during the entire game.

I respect your view that the missed shots were not "tired shots". I disagree! But they not only missed open, clean shots, they had no energy down the stretch. Their passes were lazy and not crisp at all. In the fourth quarter when those things happen, it's mostly attributed to fatigue. And when you look at the totally different styles of play in each half, why else did we fade in the second half and, even worse, in the 4th quarter?

We played with so much energy in the first half. Everyone was running the floor and getting out on the break for easy baskets. We obviously could not keep that up with the heavy minutes.

I don't agree with Doc's decision to play just 8 players with no big substitutions.

Prakash, these guys performed throughout the season just like everyone else. Some of it good and some bad. Lee, Terry and Crawford did not separate themselves by their play from Wilcox and TWill given their playing time. But the one thing you cannot take away is that Wilcox brought energy all the time. Same for TWill. We substituted not one big during the entire game.

I respect your view that the missed shots were not "tired shots". I disagree! But they not only missed open, clean shots, they had no energy down the stretch. Their passes were lazy and not crisp at all. In the fourth quarter when those things happen, it's mostly attributed to fatigue. And when you look at the totally different styles of play in each half, why else did we fade in the second half and, even worse, in the 4th quarter?

We played with so much energy in the first half. Everyone was running the floor and getting out on the break for easy baskets. We obviously could not keep that up with the heavy minutes.

I don't agree with Doc's decision to play just 8 players with no big substitutions.

OK, so we have both said our pieces. I will hope that the players show up ready for the next game. You should hope that Doc will prepare a better plan plan for the next game. Between the two of us, we will hopefully lick this one.

The Celtics got alot of rest leading up to the playoffs. The Knicks lost Chandler, played Novak for 5 minutes and played James White less than a minute.

There is no reason a guy like Wilcox shouldn't be out there sprinting up and down the court. There is no reason a guy like TWill shouldn't be out there keeping the tempo up. When the Celtics pushed the pace in the first half, they got alot easy buckets in transition and looks at the rim.

Then we went to the slow down "iso" in the 2nd half. If Doc doesn't trust a veteran like Wilcox and a guy like Williams who has played well to push the pace for the Celtics, then we are DONE in this round.

He'd much rather keep a slow-moving KG on the court and play him a totally uncustomary 37 minutes in which he was obviously gassed. And Green played all but 2 minutes. Where did this rotation strategy come from?

Did the Celtics really go to slow down iso? From Doc's comments, it does not look like that is what he prescribed. Also, we have seen a lot of Wilcox and Williams in the regular season. Do you really believe that they are ready to perform?

The guys that were supposed to perform, did not. KG and Terry are prime culprits. The bench was playing tentative. Green became soft in the second half. I am frustrated by that too. But I am not buying the recipies being circulated by you and Kirk.

For the Celts to do some damage in this series, the players will have to stand up and fight.

The Celtics got alot of rest leading up to the playoffs. The Knicks lost Chandler, played Novak for 5 minutes and played James White less than a minute.

There is no reason a guy like Wilcox shouldn't be out there sprinting up and down the court. There is no reason a guy like TWill shouldn't be out there keeping the tempo up. When the Celtics pushed the pace in the first half, they got alot easy buckets in transition and looks at the rim.

Then we went to the slow down "iso" in the 2nd half. If Doc doesn't trust a veteran like Wilcox and a guy like Williams who has played well to push the pace for the Celtics, then we are DONE in this round.

He'd much rather keep a slow-moving KG on the court and play him a totally uncustomary 37 minutes in which he was obviously gassed. And Green played all but 2 minutes. Where did this rotation strategy come from?

Did the Celtics really go to slow down iso? From Doc's comments, it does not look like that is what he prescribed. Also, we have seen a lot of Wilcox and Williams in the regular season. Do you really believe that they are ready to perform?

The guys that were supposed to perform, did not. KG and Terry are prime culprits. The bench was playing tentative. Green became soft in the second half. I am frustrated by that too. But I am not buying the recipies being circulated by you and Kirk.

For the Celts to do some damage in this series, the players will have to stand up and fight.

Haven’t had a chance to peruse the Forum since watching the game. Was interested to see how many would just reflexively blame Doc because he "sux" and every loss has to be his fault – and I was not disappointed. I do have to admit, that I am pleasantly surprised that no one started a thread blaming the loss of RR… This game and loss is simply on players that didn’t play as well as they needed to in order to win…

Some thoughts for everyone to consider…

-- The C’s ran the same core half-court sets in the 2nd half as they did in the 1st when they scored 53 points. The difference – they missed more shots (start of the 4th in particular), then got tentative with less ball movement, silly turnovers, and better NY defense. Did we push the ball more in the 1st half - sure, but playoffs end up about 1/2 court execution...

-- We opened the 4th qtr with KG missing a contested but for him “open” baseline post jumper; KG then missed a wide open 18’ jumper; JT then missed a wide open 3 and Green got the OR and was stripped. We make 2 of the 4 and the 4th qtr starts very differently, so it was, without a doubt, absolutely horrid play calling leading to excellent scoring options. Please don't tell me they wre gassed coming out of the timeout...

-- Kirk laments the lack of screening (ala the Spurs – also one of the top-3 teams in the league, funny how that seems to coincide) but look at our skills sets – we only have two players that are comfortable coming off of screens – Jet and to a lesser degree Crawford and they collectively shot like crap. If they don’t get more productive we are in big trouble… Pierce, Green, AB… they aren’t players focused on coming off of screens and to ask them to isn’t smart coaching. We are, for better or worse, a “match-up” offensive team right now that uses its movement to get PP the ball usually around the elbow top of key (often after a little brush screen), KG on the block (often after a roll or cross screen) or 18’ slot, or JGreen on the wing or block (I think he could be more effective there – nice jump hook – but obviously isn’t his sweet spot). They then need to create or find cutters (Knicks did a great job of fixing that problem in the 2nd half). Just calling for screens is counterproductive it that doesn’t put the player into a comfort position. Without RR, we have no one that is consistently effective in a ball-screen so you don’t see that anymore. You coach offense to your talent and specific skill sets…

-- Btw Kirk, the vaunted Spurs shot 37% in game 1 and Duncan played 2 less minutes than KG... that is Pop (who is hte best coach in teh NBA) upping his stars minutes in the playoffs. If Pop lost Splitter and Parker - do you think he gives those minutes to the next guy on the bench in the playoffs or does he up his starters minutes.

-- Courtney Lee passing the ball to the Knicks was also because Doc practices handling situations incorrectly. This, if I remember correctly gave the Kniks the lead…

-- Defensively, the C’s were excellent. They completely took away the screen/roll game from Chandler and Martin – I believe 1 basket the whole game. Downside is that the help forced us into rotation situations.

-- Melo had a huge game scoring wise, but we also defended him very well in the half-court, BBass in particular. Defensively, we could have been better in transition, but you can’t expect perfection. We significantly limited their two most dangerous options.

-- Too may people (Acie, among others) just hammer Bass and call for Shav. Shav has played better than I expected, but… KMart & Chandler were not ever on the floor together. So Melo played the 4 basically the entire game (41 mins). If we had played KG with either Shav or Wilcox they would have had to guard Melo – which would have been lunacy. Again, BB did an excellent job on Melo. If you want to argue that Shav should have been in there when KG was on the bench (11 mins), fine but BB had 10 rebs, 9 defensive – and we did not get out rebounded. So while game in and game out, that criticism might have some validity – it did not in this particular game.

-- Minutes - BTW Melo and Felron both played more minutes than KG. If you really think 4 less minutes of KG and 4 minutes of Wilcox/Shav was the diference.... well, ok...

-- Where I do agree is that if Jet and Crawford don't produce quickly in game 2, then there's nothing to lose with TWill... but when you are looking for offense - do you think Crawford or TWill... I think the former even if he didn't play well...

-- NY had 10 off rebs on 47 missed shots – a decent defensive rebounding %. For one comparison the Clips had 14 OR on 33 misses the next day and all four teams last night has similar or worse defensive rebound rates. I do not believe NYK had more than 7-8 2nd chance points and one of them came after a blocked shot (JGreen on Melo) which often times happens, and one came off of Lee’s pass to Martin which actually came after an OR had extended the possession. While the Knicks had two very important OR’s to extend key possessions in the 2nd half, it was a secondary aspect of the loss and not one that 10 minutes of Shavlik Randolph would have altered.

-- Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers – and basic ones at that. Jeff Green passing to the inside shoulder which Kidd picked off. AB attempting the lob entry passes the RR throws so well leading to at least 3 if not 4 turnovers… Would RR have made a difference?

-- I waited to the end to bring up possibly the most important point as I do not want to start another RR thread here. If you think his injury is addition by subtraction, fine – we simply disagree. But in games like this – his ability to create offense iin teh 1/2 court was DESPERATELY NEEDED! Without RR (or another PG with his skill set off the bounce) we have no on-ball screen attack… 2nd – with the lack of production from the bench guards, we missed RA as well. The combination of no RR (or anyone able to attack off of a ball screen) and no 2G’s having the ability to really knock down jumpers off of staggers forces us into the more isolation game we play. Trying to do anything different would be akin to ramming the square peg thru the round hole.

If you actually made it to the end of this thread, thanks. I happen to be in the group that thinks that Doc is a top-10 NBA coach. But even if you are not, game 1 was not a coaching let down: it was 1) an execution let down on offense (bad choices and missed open shots); 2) the Knicks made bigger plays in bigger situations; and 3) a lack of the ability of someone on offense to just make things happen when the offense begins to stagnate – we missed RR dearly on Saturday. If we want to win the series, the players will have to play better, as it should be.

The Celtics lost because they have to depend on inconsistent scorers in crunch time. Take away Pierce and Garnett and the team can be beaten. Terry has to score and if he can't they will not beat NY. Terry has not been a consistent scorer, a shocker if you are the Celtics.

The Celtics got alot of rest leading up to the playoffs. The Knicks lost Chandler, played Novak for 5 minutes and played James White less than a minute.

There is no reason a guy like Wilcox shouldn't be out there sprinting up and down the court. There is no reason a guy like TWill shouldn't be out there keeping the tempo up. When the Celtics pushed the pace in the first half, they got alot easy buckets in transition and looks at the rim.

Then we went to the slow down "iso" in the 2nd half. If Doc doesn't trust a veteran like Wilcox and a guy like Williams who has played well to push the pace for the Celtics, then we are DONE in this round.

He'd much rather keep a slow-moving KG on the court and play him a totally uncustomary 37 minutes in which he was obviously gassed. And Green played all but 2 minutes. Where did this rotation strategy come from?

The mind of Doc Rivers.

Pop played all his backup bigs in San Antonio.

You do realize that the Spurs were playing a very "BIG" team in the Lakers and the Celtics were playing a spread the ball three pt shooting team don't you? I am quite sure if we were playing the Lakers that Doc would have played the bigs more.